"Yes," she said huskily. "That was the time. Just after ten. He looked furious."
"Not so much as I did. Robert was livid himself, unfortunately. That was how it happened. He was still standing on the hearthrug, shaking with fury, and he said something quite unpardonable, and I hit him. I hit him very hard. In fact I barked my knuckles on his chin and cut his face badly for him. He went down like a tree, with his head on the parquet. I think I put him out for a minute or two for he lay there goggling at me and I stood looking at him for a tremendous time."
"I know. I saw you."
"Did you? Where from? The yard?"
"Yes."
"Hadn't I pulled the blind down then? No? That must have been afterward. Yes, it was of course. I drew the blind after I'd got him into the chair and seen the mess his face was in."
He was silent for a moment or so and she heard him laugh awkwardly in the darkness.
"Such a silly, kiddish story. I was ordinarily and unintelligent angry and I seem to have behaved like an undergrad hearty, all inflammatory with first love and what not. Anyway, I remained truculent. It didn't pass. But I did have the sense to realist that I'd put up an idiotic show by marking him, and my first anxiety was to get him clean and tidy, so that his version of the story wouldn't sound too bad for anything. He was pretty worried about himself too. He kept saying, 'What will the servants think?" like a parrot, until I nearly hit him again. Finally I went out and got his hat and coat for him and told him to get into them while I went up to say good night to you. My idea was to cart him down to a doctor and get him patched up. We were going to use the yard door so that he shouldn't run the risk of meeting anyone in the hall. Well, all that was all right as far as it went, but when I came down again I heard him talking inside the room. I assumed that Lucar had returned so I didn't go in. A deep feeling of no enthusiasm for both of them descended upon me and I thought oh well, what the hell. I went back down the passage, got my own coat from the cloakroom where I had left it, like an ass, when I fetched his, and let myself out. When he didn't show up in the morning I took it for granted that he was hiding somewhere, getting his face presentable."
"Why didn't you tell them all this?"
"Who? Dolly'?",
"No. The police."
He laughed and released her hand.
"It wouldn't have been a good idea, ducky, would it?" he said. "Lucar had brought the entire boiling down on his own head, anyway, by clearing out."
"You weren't trying to shield Lucar?"
"No. naturally not. But I saw no point in going into a long story about what he had said and what Robert had said and why I was irritated."
"In fact you were shielding me?”
He leaned over and put his hands one on each side of her on the wall of the cab.
"Oh, my God, Duchess," he said heavily, "if you make a hero of me you're going to come such a howling cropper."
"I don't think I care very much about that."
He kissed her gently, almost shyly.
"I don't believe you do. Heaven help us both," he said.
13
The detective was sitting stolidly in the hall waiting for them as they came up the steps. He was apologetic. Divisional Detective Inspector Bridie, he assured them, was more than sorry to have to ask Miss Ivory to come out again at this time of night, but if she would come down to headquarters for a minute or two he would be eternally grateful
There was not the slightest hint of compulsion in the request. It was almost abject. But the time was queer and the urgency was queer, and Frances felt again the little stab of fear under her diaphragm.
David went with them as a matter of course, and the plainclothes man made no objection. It was an uncomfortable journey, with the two sitting stiffly in the back of a taxi and the detective silent on an occasional seat in front of them. It had begun to rain heavily again when they stumbled out across the slippery pavement, up a worn flight of steps, and crossed under the blue light into a narrow corridor neatly decorated in government green. They passed an open doorway through which they caught a glimpse of the homely charge sergeant's office and went on up uncarpeted stairs to a waiting room which might have belonged to any railway station. There was a young constable standing by the door, and behind him, seated at the table and looking as if she was going to drop with fatigue, was Miss Dorset, of all people.
Their escort cut short any mutual greetings with a hurried apology.
"It sound funny. I know, but I wonder if you'd mind, miss? No talking," he said. "It won't he for long. It's only regulations."
He nodded to the constable, who went off at once, leaving them all looking at one another awkwardly. Frances was openly nervous. She looked peculiarly out of place in her long white fur coat in the rigidly utilitarian surroundings. David stood close to her, dropping his hand unostentatiously over her own.
They waited for a full minute before the clatter on the boards outside announced the return of the constable. He came in ponderously, and his young eyes rested on her with open boyish admiration.
"This way, miss." he said, beaming. "The inspector was sorry to keep you waiting."
It was all very formal and old fashioned, as if the law were some elderly gentleman with a pleasant taste in servants if none in furnishings.
She left David without a glance and went with him, and afterward, when she thought of it again, it seemed symbolic.
Bridie was sitting behind his desk, a pair of steel spectacles on the tip of his nose and no trace of weariness in his bearing. He rose when she came in and set a chair for her himself, waving the constable out of the room as he did so.
"This is a fine time to ask ye to come and see me. Did ye think ye were coming to jail?" he said cheerfully. "Would ye like a cigarette?" He indicated the ornate box on his desk but did not offer it, and seemed mildly relieved when she refused. A movement behind her made her glance round to discover a helmet less constable seated at a small desk, who was regarding her with unsmiling interest. "Ye don't want to notice him." said Bridie with terrific jocularity. "The poor chap jolly well has to sit there to take down any jewelery that may drop from ma lips."
He laughed at his own attempt at a witticism, and his eyes were human and pleased.
"Now," he said, resettling himself, "you'll probably think I'm a fussy old parson to get ye to come down here in the middle of the night so I can ask ye something I've asked ye before, but I won't keep ye long. Yell be in your bed in half an hour. Would you just repeat exactly what ye did on the night your poor dead brother-in-law... pardon me, half brother-in-law... was last seen alive?"
His friendliness, which amounted almost to gaiety, was not in the least disarming. Frances felt her scalp begin to prickle, and breathing was absurdly difficult.
"I was talking to Phillida." she said cautiously, trying to remember every word of her previous statement.
"At what time?"
"I don't know exactly. I went up at about half-past nine, I think. I'd heard the nine o'clock news on the radio. And then David arrived and he and Robert had gone into the garden room. Robert told me not to go with them, so I went up to Phillida."
"Jolly clear," said Bridie with unnecessary enthusiasm, and the constable made a note.
Frances continued. The hideous room with its bilious walls and unshaded lights was swimming. There was no reason why she should be afraid. She had so little to hide, so little to tell, and yet her mouth was dry and her ears were singing.
"I stayed with her for some little time, about another half-hour, and then I went downstairs again, as I've told you."
"So ye have, and told it well," he assured her happily. "But I'd just like it once more. Half an hour... That makes it tenish."
Tenish. David had used that ugly little word. She hesitated uncertainly. There was danger about. The smell of it was in the very air and yet she could not place it. Bridie was beaming and avuncular, and she took the plunge. After all, it was the truth. Surely there could be no harm in s
ticking to that?
"Yes," she said. "Just about ten. I passed Mr. Lucar in the hall and I went on down to the yard, as I said."
"Wait a minute. You're sure ye passed Mr. Lucar at that time?"
"Yes. Perfectly sure."
"Ah," said Bridie, and the constable took another note. "Then ye went down to the yard and what did ye see?"
This was the danger point. This was the lie. She saw the real scene clearly in her mind: David alone, David standing with no expression on his face, looking down. Robert must have been lying on the floor then, goggling stupidly, the mark on his jaw slowly purling up. It was such a little subterfuge, such a small omission. She remembered the exact words she had used before and repeated them.
"I saw David and Robert talking."
"Just talking?"
"Yes."
"Talking." said Bridie. "Ah well, Mr. Lucar will be pleased. He can sleep in his own house tonight."
He was watching her, peering out at her from under his heavy lids, and she suddenly saw the pitfall.
"Is Mr. Lucar here?"
He nodded.
"Just in there,"" he said, jerking his Grey head towards an inner door. "He's a lucky man. Fortunately for him there was a good conscientious woman working uncommonly late in the picture gallery that night, and she can tell how he came in for his hat and coat at ten o'clock and how they walked down to the tube together and took a train. His servant swears for him that night, and we've traced his movements ever after that night ourselves. The woman gives him a grand alibi."
"Miss Dorset?"
'That's she. She's a great parson. An honest, sensible conscientious woman, isn't she?"
The final question was shot at her, but she did not notice.
"Oh yes," she said absently, "yes, she's all right. She's absolutely cast iron. If she says it, it is so. It is so," she repeated, facing the result of her little lie. David and Robert talking. David and Robert. Robert seen alive with David after Lucar was safely out of the house and in Miss Dorset's unimpeachable care. Robert never seen again.
She sat up suddenly, and Bridie pounced on her changing expression.
"What's come into your mind?"
"Nothing," she said earnestly. "Nothing."
Yet out of the whirlpool of suggestions, riddles, bewildering details and half-comprehended incidents which engulfed her something had arisen, something which set a whole procession of appalling questions racing through her mind. Since Lucar had not returned to the garden room that night David had lied to her in the taxi when he had said he had heard Robert talking to him through the door.
14
The sound of the latch slipping home in the darkness woke Frances to full consciousness. She sat up in bed and peered across the room trying to make out a deeper shadow in the black. The house was dead. The heavy curtains over the windows shut out all light from the street lamps and the only sound was the faraway grumble of traffic beyond the square. "Frances?"
The whisper started out of the silence like a fire alarm, and she flung out her hand and caught the tassel which turned on the bedside light. The faint pink glow stretched out towards the door, and a figure standing there stepped back against the portiere. It was Phillida. She was in a dark velvet wrapper, and above the soft plum-colored folds her haggard face and pale hair looked ghostly.
"What's happened?"
Frances had not meant to sound so rattled, but the question was jerked out of her.
"Nothing else. I want to talk to you."
"Oh, I see. Very well, come over here. What time is
it?"
"Nearly four. I had to come. I couldn't stay in my room another minute. Frances, you've got to listen to me. You've got to help me. I'm so frightened I don't know what to do."
"All right, of course I'll listen. Don't stand there shivering. Put the quilt round you. What is it?"
Phillida came to the end of the bed but did not sit down.
"It's 'Dolly," " she said huskily. "If only we could get him to go away."
The younger girl eyed her curiously.
"I thought you seemed to be getting on pretty well with him tonight," she said at last.
"When he accused David? I know. That's what I mean. That's why I'm frightened. Don't you see, he's plunged into this... this business as if it were a new expedition or something. He's not thinking of anyone's feelings or anyone's safety. He's just fascinated by the problem. He's blind. He doesn't seem to see that it's real."
Her earnestness was disarming, even at such an hour, and Frances felt deeply sorry for her.
"Have you suggested that he went?"
"I've hinted. I didn't dare to say it outright in case it made him completely obstinate. You don't know him. He's always being like this. That was how that secret marriage happened. He forced it. He talked and bullied and got wildly and insanely enthusiastic until I simply went to pieces and let him fix it. When I saw him come limping in the other day I thought those frightful experiences out there had taken the fire out of him, but they haven't. They've rotted him up physically, but his spirit is exactly the same. What shall I do?"
Frances lay back on her pillow, with her hands behind her head, and blinked at the light.
"I don't see what you can do, darling, except bear it," she said awkwardly. "He's got all the cards. I mean you can't turn him out. As long as he wants to go on playing detective we shall have to let him, in view of all the circumstances."
"But, Frances, you don't understand." Phillida was still talking in whispers, but she had grown more vehement. "You don't seem to grasp what kind of person he is. Don't you realist he's been bitten by the mystery of the thing? He's seized on it and let it get hold of him. I don't believe he ever thinks of anything else, day or night. He'll go on ferreting at it until he drags the whole horrible mess out into the daylight."
"Let him." Frances passed her hands over her face. "I wish to Cod he would. We can't go on like this all our lives."
"Oh, but listen." Phillida dropped on her knees by the bedside and leaned across the coverlet. "He's looking for the truth like an angry man looking for a collar stud, who wrecks everything in the room. Sometimes he gets insane ideas about things. Look how he accused David with no real evidence at all."
As France's did not speak she leaned closer.
"Frances. I haven't told this to anybody but I'm so frightened that I can't bear it any longer. He hasn't said anything direct, of course, but I can see how his mind works, and from the way he looks at me I've wondered... I mean it's sneaked through my mind... that... Oh lord. Frances, do you think he could be so mad as to get it into his head that I'd done it?"
"You? My dear girl, no. Of course not. You're off your head. You go back to bed. You feel like this because it's nighttime. One always gets frightful ideas in the night."
"No, it's not that. I'm not hysterical." She was speaking with a deadly seriousness which was convincing. "Don't sound so shocked. Don't you see it's not real to him at all? He's still living half in the wilds. He hasn't got used to civilization, that's all. He thinks I might have done it."
A note in her voice startled Frances and she sat up.
"Phillida, you're not telling me that..."
"That I did? No, I'm not. Of course I'm not." She dragged herself to her feet. "But there you are, you see. Even you, you. the only person who knows I couldn't have killed Robert, even if I'd wanted to, you're willing to suspect me. Everyone suspects me. The doctor does. Gabrielle does. 'Dolly' does. And you, who know I didn't, even you're beginning to wonder. You fool! You were with me yourself until you went downstairs and saw Robert talking to David. Then on your own showing you heard someone go out and after that you were hanging about the house for a long time. You know I couldn't have done it, could I? Could I?"
Could she? Frances found herself giving the question a consideration both levelheaded and detached. Her own movements on the night of Robert's disappearance were stamped into her mind indelibly. She had come flying up to her o
wn room from the yard and had stayed there until David had put his head in. A certain amount of time had elapsed between those two incidents, so there had been plenty of opportunity for Phillida to slip out of her room, hang about in one of the empty rooms downstairs, and then, when David came up...
Her steady train of thought leapt forward. If the person whom David had heard through the garden-room door talking to Robert had been Phillida, then not only would he not have intruded upon them, but he would never have admitted it afterward.
Phillida leaned down with her hands on the other girl's shoulders. Her fact; looked young and spoilt in her eagerness.
"Could I?" she repeated. "Say it. Could I?"
It was in that moment of hesitation, when the entire house seemed to be listening and the restless silence of the London night was crowding closely upon them as they huddled together in their little pool of rose-colored light, that the thing happened.
The great brass and iron gong, which Li-Cheng, that prince of dealers, had insisted on presenting to Meyrick on the occasion of his first marriage, and which had stood in decorative opulence in a corner of the hall for thirty-five years, pitched onto the flags with a sound like all the brass instruments of creation hurling down some gigantic ravine. The things that gae bump i' the night have usually the dreadful quality of hide-termination, but this was different. It was a tremendous noise and, moreover, a distinctive one. There was no possible doubt about it. Everybody in the house heard it and knew what it was.
Black Plumes Page 12
